A Practical Introduction to Real-World Research
Getting the Job Done
- Loreen Wolfer - University of Scranton, USA
January 2021 | 544 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
This practical text combines social research methods with coverage of statistical analysis to help students develop the applied research skills needed for future careers in public and private organizations, while also delivering a solid foundation for those going on to graduate school.
Throughout the book, the author offers a real-world example and then breaks it down into a decision tree, which helps lead students to a possible statistical decision (rather than starting with the statistic). This text gives students a toolbox of the most common and in-demand skills and demonstrates how those skills can be used to make the best research decisions. The book takes students through the entire real-world research process, from the formation of a research topic to measurement and sampling, to methods for gathering information and making sense of the data, and finally presenting to a non-academic audience in a way that “gets the job done.”
Resources for instructors and students are available on an accompanying website for the book at: https://edge.sagepub.com/wolfer.
Part I: Establishing the Issue
Chapter 1: Introduction to research
Chapter 2: Getting Started: Topics, Literature Reviews, and Hypotheses
Part II: Setting the Foundation for Observation
Chapter 3: Ethics in Research
Chapter 4: Measurement
Chapter 5: Sampling
Part III: Methods of Gathering Information
Chapter 6: Experiments
Chapter 7: Surveys
Chapter 8: Qualitative Approaches
Chapter 9: Evaluation Research
Part IV: Making Sense and Presenting the Information
Chapter 10: Preparing Quantitative Data
Chapter 11: Descriptive Statistics
Chapter 12: Confidence Intervals and One-Sample Hypothesis Testing
Chapter 13: Hypothesis Testing with Two or More Samples
Chapter 14: Finding the Degree of Association and Prediction
Chapter 15: Data Presentation and Writing Results
Chapter 16: Qualitative Analysis
I appreciate the clear language and the use of R. I also like the connections to Statistics as my students take both simultaneously.
Periodontics Dept, Univ Of Texas Hlth Sci Center
April 12, 2021
I never got this to consider for my class.
Economics Dept, Morgan State University
February 12, 2021
Sample Materials & Chapters
Chapter 1. OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Chapter 2. RESEARCH TOPICS, LITERATURE REVIEWS, AND HYPOTHESES